"Who's that you have there?" Merlo asked with a thin smile. "Yorick?"

"Who?"

"Never mind. Let's put the puzzle together."

The body parts all matched up now, but at this hour it took flashlights to prove it.

"I'd say the older one was about forty-five," Merlo said to Curry as they stared down at the reconstructed corpse. "About five six. Dark hair. Some decomposition. Killed before the other, I'd say. Coroner will fix that, soon enough."

They walked to the other, younger corpse. Night had overtaken dusk, but the black sky was lit somewhat by the glow of the open-hearth furnaces of the steel mills.

"This poor bastard," said Merlo, flashing the light on the white body, "looks younger than you, Curry."

Curry said, "Flash that on his hands."

Merlo did, one hand at a time.

"See that?" Curry asked, kneeling, pointing to the dead man's wrists.

Merlo nodded. "Rope burns."

Soon the boys from the county morgue were placing the torsos on stretchers and the body parts in separate wicker baskets and began hauling them away. Curry and Merlo watched from a distance, atop the incline of Kingsbury Run, near their parked unmarked car.

"How do you read this, Detective Curry?"

"A madman did this."

"Could be a crime of passion," Merlo suggested. "Love triangle gone awry."

"What, a woman did this?"

Merlo smiled patiently. "No. I think this is a man's work, all right."

Curry thought about that.

Then he asked, "Why am I here, sir?"

"Call me Martin, or Marty. All right, Al?"

"Okay," Curry said, smiling a little. "But why me?"

"Don't you know?" Merlo asked with his own wry smile. "You're a he-ro."